Just as, Steiner asserts, there is the sequence mineral-plant-animal-man,
so there are nine more stages (three triads) of evolution before
Godhead, these being referred to as the "Spiritual Hierarchies".
The current Spiritual Hierarchies had evolved to their present office through
previous eras. These Spiritual beings, the nomenclature for which
Steiner takes from the Christian Neoplatonist Dionysius,
are the creative beings who shaped the world and human consciousness.

GODHEAD

FatherSonHoly Ghost

FIRST HIERARCHY

SeraphimCherabimThrones or Spirits of Will

SECOND HIERARCHY

Spirits of MotionSpirits of WisdomSpirits of Form, Creators

THIRD HIERARCHY

Spirits of the Age (Zietgeist)Archangels (Spirits of Races)Angels (Guiding spirits)

Steiner differed though in his evolutionary or ascending emphasis.
And here again we see his Theosophical, and ultimately crypto-darwinian,
heritage. He considered that the spiritual hierarchies were stages
of evolution from the physical (i.e. the next stage beyond the human is
the "angel"), rather than stages of emanation or descent, as all
the other sources unanimously assert. But if we ignore this
eccentricity, we find that his description of the actual spiritual hierarchies
themselves is pretty much in keeping with the consensus "perennial philosophy".
In fact, perhaps the most detailed and comprehensive account of the angelic
or creative Demiurges available in English at least is to be had from Steiner's
teachings. Drawing from the writings of the 5th/6th century Christian
Neoplatonist Dionysius
the Aeropagite, Steiner spoke of three hierarchies, each of which
is divided into three sub-hierachies. Sometimes he would add a fourth
triad, which he called "the Godhead", above these three, although this
highest triad was not given any part to play in the scheme of cosmic (or
Solar Systemic - for Steiner's cosmology rarely extended beyond this solar
system) evolution.

The following tables summarise Steiner's angelology.

Hierarchy

Objective Consciousness

Subjective Consciousness

First

World-creation

Creation of Beings

Second

Self-creation

Simulation of Life

Third

Manifestation

Being filled with Spirit

Man

Perception

Inner Life

A few words of explanation from Steiner are necessary regarding
some of these categories:

"When man directs his gaze outwards...,he lives with
the outer world...of nature. But when he diverts his gaze from
outside, he enters his own inner being and lives an in-dependent inner
[i.e. subjective] life....(With) the beings of the Third Hierarchy
- instead of perception they have manifest, and in this manifestation they
reveal themselves. Instead of inner life they have the experience
of higher spiritual worlds, that is to say, they are filled with
Spirit.

What in the beings of the Third Hierarchy
is manifestation of self, is in [the beings of the Second Hierarchy]
self-realisation, self-creation, a stamping of impressions of their
own being; and what in the (former)...is being filled with spirit,
is in them stimulation of life, which consists in severance, in objectifying
themselves....The beings of the First Hierarchy can also objectify
themselves, they can also stamp their own being; it is separated
from them as in a sort of skin or shell....(But) a higher degree of objectivity
is attained by them than by the Second Hierarchy.
When the beings of the Second Hierarchy create, if their creations
are not to fall into decay, they must remain connected with them....What
they create has independent objective existence; but only so long as they
remain linked with it. On the other hand that which is detached
from the beings of the First Hierarchy...remain in existence, self-acting,
objective.

In the First Hierarchy...we have a form
of creation in which the part created is detached - we have not only
self creation, but world creation. That which proceeds from the
beings of the First Hierarchy is a detached world, such (as)...this (physical)
world-phenomenon is....(T)he inner experience of the beings of the
First Hierarchy lies in creation, in forming independent beings...To
create...(and) live in other beings is the inner experience of the...First
Hierarchy. Creation of worlds is their external life - creation
of beings their inner life."

With Steiner's spiritual hierarchies in the celestial spheres we see an
obvious identify to Suhrawardiís
"Lords of Species" who "move the heavens through love and guard all the
creatures of the Earth " And his cosmic Christ, as the composite
of the six solar Spirit of Form and central pivot in his cosmology, as
well as being the occult being behind the human Christ, is clearlly no
different to the Master of Ishraqi's Gabriel, the archetype of humanity,
identified with the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of the Prophet Muhammad,
and thus also with the function of revelation as such, being the supreme
revealer of all knowledge. This compatibity between these two spiritual
teachers, who lived in very different cultures and times, is made all the
more remarkable by the fact that Steiner had obviously never heard of Suhrawardi,
or of the Ishraqi tradition he founded.

Concerning the lowest member of the Spiritual Hierarchies, the
Angeloi,
Steiner says that when people pray to God - god help me with this
or with that - they are really praying to their personal Angel, who
follows them through birth and death. As we have seen, the idea of
a higher or guardian daimon first became prominant in the later Hellenistic
period. Plotinus refers
to it, and so do Iamblichus
and the other Neoplatonists.
Steiner's conception though is shallow and superficial, especially in relation
to the ayan
thabitha of Ibn
Arabi, or the Holy Guardian Angel of Aleister
Crowley.